


Ever After

by Maire_Grey



Series: Ever After [1]
Category: Labyrinth
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-10
Updated: 2021-03-10
Packaged: 2021-03-17 04:08:28
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,996
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29960709
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Maire_Grey/pseuds/Maire_Grey
Summary: Sarah comes home changed from her Labyrinth adventure. Struck with the depression she cannot understand, she goes through her life miserably until college. Jareth, unable to bear her pain any longer, meets with her to help her figure out her depression and her previously unknown background. It all comes down to the legendary people of ancient Ireland, the Tuath dé.
Relationships: David Bowie/Jennifer Connelly
Series: Ever After [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2203560
Comments: 3
Kudos: 6





	Ever After

“We have to keep reinventing ourselves, almost every minute because the world can change in an instant. And there's no time for looking back. Sometimes the changes are forced on us. Sometimes they happen by accident and we make the most of them. We have to constantly come up with new ways to fix ourselves. So we change, we adapt. We create new versions of ourselves. We just need to be sure that this one is an improvement over the last." - Sarah Williams

For the first year after her Labyrinth adventure, Sarah tried to reach Jareth and her friends. No contact whatsoever. She began to doubt her own sanity. And stopped trying to call them as much. She would still talk to Jareth out loud at times, but she knew he couldn't or wouldn't hear her. She couldn't have been more wrong.   
That had been too vivid, with too many details to have been a dream. Yet – she had no proof of anything but the feather. She became frustrated and depressed. This was something that was so important to her, and it was denied her. She continued to have dreams. Worse yet, there was no one that she could talk to.

She began to distance herself from friends and family. It was easy to distance herself from family. Sarah still blamed her father for the car accident that had left her motherless at nine years old. Then, in the space of a year, he had gone and remarried someone else. While she supposed Karen was a good person, she was also a terrific nag, and very nosy. Toby was just a baby, so he didn't count.

And as for friends at school, well - she became less and less interested in them. They seemed somehow, just immature and annoying. The things that they complained about, things they were excited about, held no interest for Sarah at all.

They would have, before the Labyrinth, but she came back changed. She came back more mature, more responsible, less self-centered, less spoiled, and she began to think so much more about others, and the power of words. She was very careful with her words now, knowing that you can't take them back. Knowing that they were powerful. Jareth had given her all of those things.

At first, this new Sarah pretended to be interested in all of the inanity, but pretending interest in what her friends had to say became so exhausting that eventually it stopped altogether. All of her friends in theatre class, her friends from drama and even her acting tutor, suddenly seems to just annoy her so much she wanted to crawl out of her own skin. So she dropped all of those extracurriculars.

This last move really concerned her father, who knew how important theatre was to Sarah, theatre, imagination, magical worlds, these things that she had always loved suddenly became an anethema to her, and her father became even more worried. Even Karen began to question all of the activities that Sara was dropping out of her life. One by one, her friends began to drop out of her life as well.

Sarah, for the most part throughout her life, had been a cheery and kind little girl until her mother's death. Because it had happened when she was only nine, it had affected her greatly, perhaps more so than people knew.  
Her father's rapid remarriage had affected her as well. And now, for reasons no one could understand, it was as though despair and anger bubbled up inside her and became her new normal. She did not know what was happening, and was unable to deal with it or fix it herself.  
Once, after a particularly bad family argument, her father had taken her to a psychiatrist. She had listened to Sarah for approximately 20 minutes, raised her eyebrows quite frequently and scribbled away madly on a pad in front of her. When she was done, she suggested that Sarah see a therapist for talk therapy at least twice a week, and prescribed a multitude of drugs that were supposed to help her overcome her despair and to quote the doctor "Give her help in coming back to reality".

As her father drove her home, she pulled out the hefty bag of pharmaceuticals and read the names: Lithium, Clonazapram, Ambien, Hydroxyzine, Olanzapine, Lexapro, Valium and vitamin B complex. What?! No way was she taking all of this! Even the names were scary. The vitamin B, maybe. What was tormenting her would not be fixed by mind numbing drugs.

She had told her father in no uncertain terms that there was no way she was going to therapy twice a week. She said it wouldn't help, that she refused to speak to a stranger, and that it would be a waste of his money because she would just flat out refuse to speak to whomever the person was.

When asked to try just one session, Sarah sat in the chair, pulled her knees up and was good to her word. She said nothing. Just sighed with overdone boredom, looked around the room, rolled her eyes, and played "the eentsy weentsy spider" wordlessly with her hands. Secretly she was particularly proud of herself for thinking up this one. Inside she was laughing.

The therapist did not seem to catch on. And the idea was dropped, just as Sarah had hoped. Her father gave up after that, although he insisted that she take her meds as prescribed. Sarah tried this, and while she felt a little sleepy the first day, and the second day, by the third or fourth day she was almost flat out catatonic. She couldn't walk straight, couldn't remember anything or focus at school. If feeling nothing was supposed to be better than being in pain, she would take the pain. No way, absolutely no way this could continue. She flushed the meds, hid the bottles, and when her father gave her her monthly refills she continued with this game.

She did her best to hide the pain and depression that she felt, and for the most part, it worked. When she absolutely would lose it, when the tears were just ready to burst forth, she would dismiss herself and go somewhere private. Usually her room. All of those acting classes seem to have paid off, because she didn't stand out any longer. She just wanted to be left alone. Why was that so hard to understand?

Her mother said once, "It's one of those things people say. 'You can't move on until you let go of the past.' Letting go is the easy part, it's the moving on that's painful. So sometimes we fight it, trying to keep things the same. Things can't stay the same though. At some point you just have to let it go. Move on. Because no matter how painful it is, it's the only way we grow."  
So, while she had OK days and horrible days, she muddled through the rest of school as best she could. Being able to study something so unlike her life absolutely saved her. And even more importantly, playing music on her mother's violin. The songs her mother had taught her, the ones they loved together.

She held on to those two things, as well as Patrick and Toby, and kept them in a safe, locked place inside her heart. And her mother. How could she forget her?  
Maureen Fitzgerald Williams was probably one of the most beautiful women in the world, Sarah thought. She had large eyes like Sarah, thick, dark hair like Sarah, and the beautiful oval face with a pointed chin and sleek cheekbones that Sarah would eventually have. She had very large, haunting grey eyes, whereas Sarah had green eyes. Maureen loved Sarah's eyes. She used to hold her face in her hands and tell her that her eyes had all of the colors of Ireland in them.

And she could laugh. She and her mother had had so much fun, just doing goofy things. Making fun of her Irish granddad's accent behind his back. Hiding his glasses. In very strange places. They put all of the clocks in the house at the wrong time, just to see the reactions. They hijacked her father's computer so that every key he hit didn't do anything but moo.

Saturday evenings were the best. She and her mom would stay up late, watching old movies. Her mother would braid her hair and they would cuddle up together under a thick knitted afghan. Sometimes watching movies that made them cry. But that was all right. Sometimes it was just fun to have a good cry over a movie character that didn't even exist.

They were alike in their care for animals. When she was younger, Sarah had brought home all kinds of critters and they kept them for a little while, enjoyed them, and then gently put them back home where they were found. All except for a kitten Sarah had found after he'd almost fallen into a sewer grate. She had named him Salem Saberhagen after a funny, outspoken magical cat on TV. Salem was the best at listening and cuddling. When she would get these crying jags, and they were becoming more and more frequent, Salem would be right there - purring and cuddling up next to her, is if he were glued to her. He did the same thing, funnily enough, when she sang. Sarah knew she had a good voice, years of vocal training had seem to that. And before she quit she had been the lead in several high school musicals.

One of her absolute favorite things to do was to play duets with her mother on violin. Maureen was a violinist with the city symphony, an incomparable musician.  
One night, when her father had driven her mother to work, her grandfather came into the house without ringing the bell. He came up to Sarah's bedroom and sat on the bed, holding her hand. His eyes were red and puffy, and he suddenly looked about 20 years older than he was. With much choking and a few sobs, he told Sarah that her parents had gone through an intersection. The green light was theirs, but a drunken high school kid had plowed right through the intersection, and T-boned the car on her mother's side.

Her father was slightly injured, but her mother was dead. The only blessing, according to the ENT, was that it was instantaneous, and she did not suffer. Sarah never got over this. She missed her mother so much. And she was furious with her father for the accident. Even though it had not been his fault at all, in her mind, it somehow was.

Watching Sarah struggle with this broke her grandfather's heart. He tried to spend time with her, tried to share happy memories of her mother, but Sarah seemed like this numb little thing.  
He said to her once, "Horrible things do happen. Happiness, in the face of all of that, that's not the goal. Feeling horrible, and knowing that you're not gonna die from those feelings, that's the point." She knew these were wise words. She wrote them down and kept the piece of paper in her desk, for a time when she could bear to think about it later.

Robert Williams was devastated at the loss of his beautiful, vivacious wife. He missed her terribly. So he dated and married another woman as quickly as possible - less than a year after Maureen had died. br /> While Karen was kind hearted, she where is nowhere near as beautiful as her mother and never stopped talking. This was something that drove Sarah absolutely over the edge. And then Toby was born. It seemed as though, to her anyway, that he was some perfect little child. A happy, good replacement for Sarah and her moodiness.

Since that time, Sarah had thrown herself into an imaginary world. A world of castles and princesses, a world of brave nights who would rescue her. A world of wizards and evil kings who wanted to hurt her. She read books, acted out plays, drew pictures, and watched movies.

After seven years of this, and seven years of resenting her father, she had begun acting out her plays in the park, where no one could see her.

When Toby came, she was conflicted. On the one hand, she resented the nights that she had to watch him. Truth be told, however, it did not happen that often. But Toby drooled, and she hated changing diapers, and he was just sort of a blob in cute pajamas. Not much of a personality yet. And his crying set her teeth on edge. Especially when she was unable to jolly him out of it. She couldn't wait until he could actually speak.

Her personality had changed, but she worked with it by becoming wry, sarcastic, and funny. While her friends got a kick out of it, Robert was increasingly worried about her. She wanted nothing to do with him, and he loved her so much. Every attempt he made to talk to her, to cheer her up, she rebuffed. She made him miserable. He wanted his old Sarah back.

After the Labyrinth, and the personality changes that came along with that, she still enjoyed her studies. As long as they were solitary. None of this "turn around and talk to the person behind you about what you just read" kind of bullshit. She listened to the lectures, she took her AP courses, did her reading and homework, and made that the main part of her life. School, when she was left to her own devices, was one of the few things that she still enjoyed and excelled in.

She had her violin, too. Her mother's violin, a priceless Antonius Stradivarius Cremonenti violin. She had always been extremely good, and now began to excel at an incredible rate. Her tutor wanted her to sign up for concerts and contests, but there was no way that Sarah could countenance that. She finally agreed to play a few solo concerts at the Conservatory, where her mother used to play. Sarah figured that her mother would like that and that this would make everyone happy.

While her tutor assigned her classical pieces, on her own time Sarah preferred the old Irish music that her mother had played for her. It was so haunting, so sad, most of it. She still missed her mother so much, and this would help for a while. There were certainly happier, jiggy pieces, but Sarah had no interest in that. She wanted melancholy, like she felt. She wanted misery and sadness. Pieces they all loved but that her granddad called "Drunkenness, Drama and Death" songs. She remembered a quote of her mother's, from one of their favorite authors and playwrights W.B. Yeats, and it went:

"Being Irish, he had an abiding sense of tragedy, which sustained him through periods of joy."

They both absolutely loved it because it reminded them of her cantankerous Irish grandad. It was so funny. But right now nothing was funny. She didn't understand this. She wasn't trying to be so miserable and moody, but she was. It wasn't fair. Somewhere in her mind she thought she heard Jareth's voice. "I wonder what your basis for comparison is?" She smiled wryly. Memories of him could either set off loss and longing and tears, or a smile. This time, his voice lifted her up, and her afternoon brightened some.

That afternoon she was tuning her violin getting ready to play - she never called it practice, because to her the word practice implied that something wasn't fun. There was a knock on the door and Karen's overly cheery face peered around it. "Sarah, honey, you've got a friend here to see you."

She hadn't asked anyone over. Who could it be? The door burst open and a boy her age raced across the room and threw himself on her bed. Making himself comfortable, leaning his head on one hand, he grinned at Sarah and said, "Whatcha doing?" Karen pointed at him behind his back and mouthed the words "He's cute," before shutting the door. Sarah just rolled her eyes.

It was Patrick. Her funniest and probably her least annoying friend. "Fine" she thought to herself "He can stay." "Whyyyyyy are you even heeeere?" She pretended to whine as she stomped her foot. She allowed one of her few true smiles towards him.

He rolled onto his back clutching his heart. "You know Sarah, you wound me. You truly do. This is the kind of greeting I get for going out of my way to see you."  
She was going to respond with some kind of smart aleck response about her not asking him to come, but then remembered what a good friend he truly was, and decided not to. "I'm going to be playing my violin for a while," She said. "Feel free to stay and listen if you like."  
He winked at her and sat up. She picked up her violin, resting her chin on the chin rest after placing the violin on her shoulder near her collarbone. Drawing her bow across the strings a few times she began to warm up. When Patrick had the nerve to make a face, she deliberately drew the bow across the strings in such a way that the violin literally screeched.

"Oh my fucking God!" He cried, covering both his ears.  
She narrowed her eyes at him and jabbed at the air toward him with her bow. "You there! In the cheap seats! I don't want to hear a sound out of you!"

He contritely agreed and she continued. She was going to play one of her sad Irish songs at first, she was thinking Grace or She Moved Through the Fair, but she thought that this might be a good time to play a piece she had been putting together herself by memory. It was always hiding, back in her thoughts. Sometimes she could remember it, sometime she could not. It was so elusive, dreamlike. She was relatively certain she knew where she'd heard it before, but like everything else from then, couldn't be certain. She quietly sang to herself to keep up with the unfamiliar waltz count. Three-quarter time then four quarter time.

"There's such a sad love  
Deep in your eyes  
A kind of pale jewel  
Open and closed  
Within your eyes  
I'll place the sky  
Within your eyes"  
Patrick stared at her with his mouth open. He had never heard this before, anywhere. What a beautiful song. She continued,  
"There's such a fooled heart  
Beatin' so fast  
In search of new dreams  
A love that will last  
Within your heart  
I'll place the moon  
Within your heart"  
As she often did, she began to sway with her music. Not dancing, really, just fully allowing herself to get into the moment.  
"As the pain sweeps through,  
Makes no sense for you  
Every thrill is gone  
Wasn't too much fun at all,  
But I'll be there for you  
As the world falls down"  
"Falling  
Falling down  
Falling in love"  
"I'll paint you mornings of gold  
I'll spin you Valentine evenings  
Though we're strangers 'til now,  
We're choosing the path  
Between the stars  
I'll leave my love  
Between the stars"  
"As the pain sweeps through,  
Makes no sense for you  
Every thrill is gone  
Wasn't too much fun at all,  
But I'll be there for you-ou-ou  
As the…

For the most part, she played with her eyes closed. But she glanced up for a moment to see how Patrick was doing. She was startled to see that he was standing right in front of her, a look of bewilderment and concern on his face. Gently, he took her violin away in his right hand and her bow in his left hand. She hadn't realized she had been crying. He was using his shirttail to dry off the chin rest on the violin. "Sarah?" he asked, "Did you write this? I've never heard you play like that before. It was as if you weren't even aware of what you were doing. That's why I stopped you. And I could hear you singing. And now you're crying. What's going on?" They both sat down side-by-side on her bed, Patrick carefully setting the violin on the dressing table.

Sarah took in one of those shuddering breaths a person does after they've been crying. She wiped her eyes with her fingers as quickly as she could, and bit her bottom lip, something her friends all knew was a sort of Sarah move, when she was trying to decide what to say next.  
"Oh God," she whispered. "I don't know. Patrick, I swear I don't know. No, I did not write that song. No, I don't know who did. It's been in my head for a while now, and finally I had to learn to play it by ear because otherwise it would've driven me crazy. I had to get it out, you know?"

Not being able to play an instrument, Patrick did not know. What he did know was that his friend was incredibly sad and falling apart. She didn't seem to care about all of the people she was driving out of her life. And nothing had happened that he was aware of! She herself didn't seem to know. That's why he was here this afternoon, out of concern for his friend. Sarah had pushed quite a few people away, but she wasn't going to do that to him. He figured that she needed as many friends as possible right now, actually. This song was beautiful, and he knew he hadn't even let her finish it, but it was also otherworldly, and somehow filled him with a sad longing for something that he could never have.

"Patrick, I love you, but you need to go. I just need some sleep." She stood up and hugged him, hard. "You're the best friend I could have." He hugged her back fiercely.  
"I'm always gonna be here for you Sare-bear," he said.  
"I know." She sighed. "Love you."  
"Sare?" He asked as she was turning around to put the precious violin back in its case.  
"Mmmhm?" Still sniffling.  
"It seems to me, and I am always right about these things, that this has guy problems written all over it."  
She whirled around to face him. She had never told anyone…  
"Don't let what he wants eclipse what you need. He's probably very dreamy, but he's not the sun. You are."

In owl form, Jareth had watched Sarah playing his song to her friend. He was conflicted. Thrilled that she remembered it, thrilled that she remembered him, but heartbroken for her in her current state. He was doing the right thing, he reminded himself - to let her know what he knew would be far more harmful than good at this point.

But he would help her in other ways. Whatever that meant. Listening to his song being played by her gifted fingers just made his heart bloom. How long has she been working on that? And even though she wasn't able to finish, she remembered every word of the song that he had sung to her in the Peach Dream. He was glad that she had Patrick. He was a good man, or guy, he thought they called young men these days. Intelligent, sensitive, funny. He was somewhat jealous that Patrick was the one who was able to comfort her, hug her, and to be her friend. But he realized that Patrick was just that – a friend, nothing more. Patrick had some demons of his own right now that Sarah was not aware of.. So, both he and Sarah could help each other out a bit. Jareth kept a lookout over his girl while she slept.


End file.
